The light came back at 9:40 the next morning, all at once, everywhere.
Soren was in the infirmary when it happened. He watched a lamp over the next bed stop burning over a pool of nothing and start burning over a floor, and he lay there and looked at the ordinary yellow circle of it for a long time.
"That's the whole announcement," said Troy, from the next bed. "No sound. No sign. The lights just work."
"What did you want, a certificate?"
"I'd have taken a certificate."
◆◆◆◆
Dani ran the numbers because Dani could not help herself.
"A hundred percent," she said, at the door. "Every surface. It's holding."
"And the yard?"
"Sealed, plugged, and boring." She checked the page. "The fragment's still in Selah's ice from the throat run. It hasn't moved since yesterday. It's going to sit up there being a rock until somebody makes it a policy problem."
"Then that's Joan's."
"Joan's asleep."
"Joan's earned it."
◆◆◆◆
The Council came back on the third day, in convoy, with cameras.
